Lake Erie watersnake being removed from Federal Endangered Species List

The Lake Erie water­snake, a fed­er­ally threat­ened and state endan­gered species, is being removed from the fed­eral government’s list of threat­ened species under the Endan­gered Species Act.
This rep­tile of has one of the small­est geo­graphic dis­tri­b­u­tions of any North Amer­i­can ver­te­brate and is found almost exclu­sively on the Lake Erie Islands. The Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources (ODNR) Divi­sion of Wildlife will pro­ceed to down-list the species from state endan­gered to state threat­ened.
“I can­not overem­pha­size how the part­ner­ship of gov­ern­ment, uni­ver­sity, con­ser­va­tion orga­ni­za­tions, and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als allowed for this rel­a­tively rapid turn­around for the Lake Erie water­snake,” said state Wildlife Diver­sity Coor­di­na­tor Kendra Wecker. “The com­mit­ment of island landown­ers, our biol­o­gists, and par­tic­u­larly Kristin Stan­ford, our Lake Erie water­snake Recov­ery Coor­di­na­tor, con­tributed to this great suc­cess. Only through this con­tin­ued com­mit­ment will this remark­able recov­ery be sus­tained. The snake pop­u­la­tion on the islands will be mon­i­tored and we want to con­tinue pub­lic out­reach efforts”.
The Lake Erie water­snake was listed as a fed­er­ally threat­ened species in 1999, and ele­vated to state endan­gered sta­tus in 2000. At that time, three pri­mary issues existed threat­en­ing the con­tin­ued sur­vival of this non-venomous species: small pop­u­la­tion size, habi­tat destruc­tion, and direct mor­tal­ity from peo­ple.
Since then, the Divi­sion of Wildlife, with the help of fed­eral and pri­vate part­ners, has worked to secure habi­tat as well as inform and edu­cate the pub­lic about this unique species. ODNR estab­lished a land man­age­ment plan on all state-owned island prop­er­ties to ensure enough suit­able habi­tats were avail­able for long-term con­ser­va­tion.
State Wildlife Grant funds were used to con­duct research and sur­veys of the snake, help estab­lish per­ma­nent con­ser­va­tion ease­ments, and to inform and edu­cate the pub­lic about this unique island rep­tile. As a result, the water­snake pop­u­la­tion has sta­bi­lized and flour­ished; pop­u­la­tion esti­mates of 8,000-plus adult Lake Erie water­snakes exceed the 5,555 snakes des­ig­nated as a marker for recov­ery in the USFWS Recov­ery Plan for the species.
These efforts have been sup­ported by the Wildlife Diver­sity and Endan­gered Species Fund, which receives dona­tions from Ohioans through the state income tax check-off pro­gram, the sale of the Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp, and the pur­chase of car­di­nal license plates. Indi­vid­u­als want­ing to donate can also make an online con­tri­bu­tion at wildohio.com.

Posted by Brian Liskai on Aug 16 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.